{"id":2273343,"date":"2026-02-09T02:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2273343"},"modified":"2026-02-09T02:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:25:06","slug":"the-super-bowl-has-turned-into-the-celebrity-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-super-bowl-has-turned-into-the-celebrity-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"The Super Bowl Has Turned Into the Celebrity Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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Welcome back to the Celebrity Bowl, 2026 edition, starring Adrien Brody, Emma Stone<\/a>, Serena Williams<\/a>, George Clooney, and others, across ads for brands like TurboTax<\/a>, Squarespace, Ro, and Grubhub<\/a>\u2026 and others.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t used to be this way. Super Bowl ads without celebrity appearances used to outnumber ads with celebs by a good margin, according to data from TV measurement firm iSpot.<\/p>\n

\"\"iSpot<\/p>\n

In 2017, 41% of ads had a celeb compared to 59% without, but that ratio reversed the very next year, which saw David Harbour pitch Tide detergent <\/a>and Jeff Goldblum resurrect<\/a> his classic Jurassic Park role for Jeep (a similar concept to Comcast-owned Xfinity\u2019s ad this year<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The celeb\/no-celeb ratio narrowed the next year, but in 2020, the divide became a chasm, as 78% of ads featured at least one celebrity (but probably more).<\/p>\n

Since then, well over 60% of ads have featured a celeb, and iSpot expects 70% of this year\u2019s Super Bowl ads to have one.<\/p>\n

At this point, Super Bowl ad buyers should just count on paying the celeb tax, on top of $8 million fee for 30 seconds of air time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a vicious cycle, because it\u2019s become harder for Super Bowl advertisers to get attention without a celeb. Since most ads have them, there\u2019s now a higher bar for cutting through the Super Bowl clutter, said Sean Muller, founder and CEO of iSpot.<\/p>\n

Love them or hate them, here are three reasons why Super Bowl advertisers need celebs in their ads, based on iSpot\u2019s analysis of the data.<\/p>\n

Celebs reach audiences beyond linear TV<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Celebs talk about their ads on social media, reaching people beyond the confines of Super Bowl air time. That\u2019s especially important because as the cost of Super Bowl spots go up, it\u2019s more important for advertisers to maximize the attention driven to their very expensive buy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a brand adds a celebrity to a campaign, they have the opportunity to reach audiences far beyond the TV spot,\u201d said Jessie Mash, partner and chief business officer at SonderCo, a brand and talent partnerships agency. \u201cThe commercial often extends into earned media opportunities, social amplification, and cultural conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"teaser-image\"<\/a> <\/div><\/div>\n

Celebs are a quick way to grab attention<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Super Bowl advertisers have 30 to 60 seconds to grab the attention of people who might be snacking, talking with friends, or scrolling on mobile. A celeb appearance is a fast and easy hook to get people invested.<\/p>\n

SonderCo\u2019s Mash said that brands are looking for more effective ways to use celebrities this year. For example, Instacart paired up<\/a> Benson Boone and Ben Stiller to reach different demographics.<\/p>\n

In another example, Fanatics picked Kendall Jenner to grab people\u2019s attention using a celebrity they may not expect to appear in an ad about sports betting.<\/p>\n

Celebs sustain buzz<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Marketers are increasingly doing more with less, and the investment of a pricy Super Bowl ad needs to pay off. Celebrities have built-in followings who help marketers plant the seeds of a campaigns weeks before it airs.<\/p>\n

Using a celebrity for press and social buzz a few weeks before ahead of time can double the value of a Super Bowl ad. <\/p>\n

Hiring top-tier talent is also a safe bet for marketers, making it easier to justify the more than $8 million price.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many brands, the ROI isn\u2019t only in the 30 seconds on air, but in the pre- and post-game halo effect, where celebrities help stretch the campaign into a broader cultural moment that is covered extensively by media outlets and social media chatter,\u201d said SonderCo\u2019s Mash.<\/p>\n

Making sure a celeb spot is successful<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Since well over 60% of Super Bowl ads have celebrity talent, it\u2019s fair to say simply having a celebrity on screen for 30 seconds doesn\u2019t guarantee success.<\/p>\n

ISpot uses a metric called \u201clikeability\u201d to grade ads using survey respondents who are asked if they will purchase or visit a brand after seeing an ad.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s top celeb-driven Super Bowl ads using this metric hired talent that fit the brand. For example, Gordon Ramsay\u2019s ad<\/a> for kitchenware company Hexclad scored high with iSpot\u2019s tracking because of the product association with Ramsay. <\/p>\n

Many also mixed in a healthy dose of nostalgia. Hellmann\u2019s spot, inspired by Rob Reiner\u2019s seminal romcom When Harry Met Sally<\/a>, brought back Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.<\/p>\n

Other ads from last year, featuring celebs, underperformed because the celeb presence was just confusing, per iSpot. Viewers couldn\u2019t make sense of FanDuel\u2019s ad<\/a> starring Peyton and Eli Manning. Similarly, they had problems understanding Meta\u2019s ad<\/a> for Ray-Ban smart glasses starring Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt\u2014neither of whom are usually associated with technology or glasses\u2014and found themselves in a spot that didn\u2019t play off their personas at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.adweek.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to the Celebrity Bowl, 2026 edition, starring Adrien Brody, Emma Stone, Serena Williams, George Clooney, and others, across ads for brands like TurboTax, Squarespace, Ro, and Grubhub\u2026 and others. It didn\u2019t used to be this way. Super Bowl ads without celebrity appearances used to outnumber ads with celebs by a good margin, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2273345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[349567,434490],"class_list":["post-2273343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-branding","tag-super-bowl-commercials"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/The-Super-Bowl-Has-Turned-Into-the-Celebrity-Bowl.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273346,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273343\/revisions\/2273346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}